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Kokua Line June Watanabe |
Thursday, May 8, 2003
No landscaper, sprinkler
woes doomed plantsQuestion: Who is responsible for all the dying landscape on the Fort Weaver Road medial strip? It was installed about 1 1/2 years ago at a cost of more than a million dollars. I now drive past it at zero to 5 mph daily (traffic) and wonder if our representatives are concerned about this. I remember a couple of years back, the Kahala community was upset over getting more rock medians. They would be thankful if they see the disrepair we are experiencing.
Answer: The plants started dying because a landscaping contract for Fort Weaver Road, which is under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Transportation, lapsed in December.
It's taken four months to get a new landscaper, but in the meantime there's a problem with a broken sprinkler system.
It wasn't until March 3 that Iki Contracting, which bid $63,900, was awarded a one-year contract, with a an additional two-year option to extend, to landscape the area, said transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa. The contract includes an extra $15,000 as a "built-in allowance" and includes landscaping the Kunia Interchange area.
It took more than a month to process the contract, and Iki Contracting was given the "notice to proceed" on April 28, Ishikawa said. Workers have been cutting back the grass and doing other preliminary work but can't do much more until the sprinkler system is repaired.
The Department of Transportation has awarded a $24,470 contract to Rainmaker Inc. to check out the entire system and replace several controllers, Ishikawa said. However, even before Rainmaker can begin its work, a broken main has to be repaired.
A contractor was asked to submit a price to repair the main and, if accepted, can begin work next week, Ishikawa said.
We asked what happened that caused the original landscaping to die.
South Pacific Masonry & Landscaping had the first landscaping contract after the initial landscaping was put in, Ishikawa said. The project was put out to bid as a 14-month contract, but "these types of projects are funded for only the current fiscal year," so it was divided into a 12-month period and a two-month period, he said.
It was "unclear" why the contract was stipulated for a 14-month period, he said.
But "the state decided not to renew the contractor for the additional two-month period after evaluating job performance, and the process to get a new contractor aboard took longer than expected," Ishikawa said.
The 12-month period ended last December. Without a two-month extension, "the contractor stopped working" in December, Ishikawa said.
Auwe
To young men in their late teens to early 20s who speed up and down our roads and highways at outrageous speeds! On a recent weekend, three of them did this in heavy afternoon traffic, driving souped-up Hondas or Acuras. They just can't seem to grasp the concept that they'll either cause an accident or kill someone driving in such a manner. -- Disgusted
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Call 529-4773, fax 529-4750, or write to Kokua Line,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. As many as possible will be answered.
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